Gay Toons? A Look At the Homoerotic Anime and Slash

A look at an online gay movement

“DRACO'S ARM SNAKED AROUND HARRY the minute the other boy's lips met his. This was what he was waiting for! Draco could taste the wine on Harry's lips and tongue. It was a new sensation, and it excited him. He stroked Harry's tongue with his own, his hands tangling in his lover's hair.”

The thought of sworn enemies Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter from Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone by J.K. Rowling making out is a rare one. But not to Lady Feylene who wrote “Bored” a Harry Potter slashfic for her website which also features homoerotic relationships between Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, Lupin and Severus Snape and even Sirius Black and James Potter!

“Bored” is among thousands of new fanfics that feature homosexual acts between famous cartoon and movie characters. These are examples of the growing popularity of yaoi, slash and yuri online, an online culture that promotes homosexual fantasy and reality.
Yaoi, according to Yaoi-Con writer Jean Johnson as found on the Yaoi-Con 2003 website, is “a woman’s genre of manga (comic books) and short stories, produced by female artists and writers for the enjoyment of female readers.” The original purposes of yaoi are not to promote gay porn but to instead promote the idealistic relationships between two men.”

Yaoi (pronounced YOW-ee) originates from ancient Japanese homoerotic fantasy, according to Johnson. The Japanese samurai warrior society provided the basis for “strong but unspoken emotional attachments between men.”

Thirty years ago, several Japanese female comic book artists started creating their own comics dedicated to “shounen-ai” (pronounced SHOnen-AY) or “Boy’s love.” Shounen-ai inspired a horde of Japanese female fans to draw their own stories about their own favorite men. These men were usually the heroes of cartoon series animated at adolescent boy such as Pokemon, Ranma 1/2, Neon Genesis Evangallion, and Slam Dunk.

Another anime genre growing in popularity online is “yuri" (pronounced YUU-ree) which is the female version of yaoi which promotes lesbian relationships. Originally created to counteract the growing popularity of yaoi,

According to yuricon.org, the term “yuri” has many different sources. Many characters in yuri manga are ironically named “Yuri” or “Yuriko” including Kei and Yuri, the first lesbians in adult anime manga. The editor of Barazoku, a Japanese gay man’s magazine, also called lesbians in Japan “yurizoku” the lily tribe in 1971.

Yuri fanfics and images are growing in popularity. The Shoujo Ai archive online houses over 500 yuri fanfics and images found from a variety of adult and nonadult sources concerning fantasized lesbian relationships in a majority of different animes.
People like to read shoujo-ai for a variety of reason, according to the archive. Many heterosexual males visit the site because it promotes heavy images of lesbian sex.
“Others get bored with predictable everyday situations in anime fanfiction, where the roles in relationships are clear cut,” archive master Philip Mak explains. “The man's job is to defend, provide food and shelter and be manly, while the woman's job is to support the man, keep the food and shelter straight, and be demure. In a lesbian relationship, these roles are not clearcut at all; the relationship becomes exciting and unpredictable again.”

That also does not undermine the fact that many anime series feature homosexual relationships which get lost in the dubs. Bishuojo Senshi Sailor Moon is a very gay friendly anime. The tomboyish Haruka, aka Sailor Saturn, and the femme Michiru, aka Sailor Neptune, are the main lesbian couple of all the sailorscouts. The manga goes further to say that all the Sailor scouts are bisexual. Ranma1/2 characters Tsubasa Kurenei and Ukyo Kuonji are crossdressers.. And many anime fans agree about the sexual tension between Neon Genesis Evangelion characters Shinji and Kaworu.

Slash, as defined by avid slash fan K.S. Nicholas on his website focuses on the romance and/or sexual relationship of characters of the same sex. He also agrees that a majority of slash fanfiction, just like yaoi, is written for

Slash is basically the Western version of yaoi. The earliest known slash to date are Star Trek slashes which featured relationships between Captain Kirk and Lieutenant Spock. Slash, today extends to a variety of famous mediums- Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Xena: Warrior Princess, Highlander and Harry Potter.

However, the idea behind slash is also for the pleasure of heterosexual females. “Without a female character that they can identify with themselves, women can read erotica without experiencing the guilt imposed on them by society about what is proper female behavior,” Nicholas writes. “This does not take into account the fact that many slash writers write straight erotica without experiencing a terrible burden of guilt.”

Despite the idea that authors who write yaoi and yuri believe that both genres pleasure the opposite sex, the movement is being used to promote positive images of homosexuality especially by those who claim that sexual preference

“Clay,” a lesbian and yuri fan, is the webmaster for “Open Your Mind, Open Your Heart.” The website features a series of banners that yaoi and yuri webmasters can post on their site in order to show support for yaoi and yuri couples in general. According to Clay, many yaoi and yuri fans (both heterosexual and homosexual fans) receive hate mail for their “unwholesome” or “perverted” ideas of homosexual couples.
Another stereotype that hinders the popularity of yuri is that it is created soely for the fantasy of heterosexual males. “Rather than watching or reading about a female-female relationship and concentrating on the girl (while mentally blocking out the guy), it is more satisfying to see a female-female relationship and concentrate on both of the girls,” Mak said. “This also allows the character to be depicted in a relationship without appearing as ‘some other guy's catch.’ “

The women of YuriCon 2003 aim to prove that Yuri is not just “lesbian porn fodder for straight men.” They claim the term “shoujo-ai” (SHO-jo AY,) also known as “girl-girl love” the female version of “shounen-ai” in yaoi. “Shoujoai typically represents romantic love between two girls- sometimes with a physical component, sometimes not,” yuri scholar Sabdha Charlton says on the website. “The emphasis tends to be on the romance between two women over the sexual.”

Guilty Pleasures is a brand new yaoi club in UC Davis dedicated to yaoi and slash fans. The group has a website online and invites all who are interested in anime and homosexual anime to come to their biweekly dinners to read and watch yaoi doujinshi (gay comics.) Guilty Pleasures also is in works of arranging a group to go to YaoiCon 2003 in San Francisco.

The idea of homosexual anime remains trapped within the idea that it is intended to pleasure the opposite sex and the borders of the internet. Further exploration of this genre can be found by contacting the Davis Yaoi Club. However, the growing online popularity of yaoi, yuri and slash is proof that more people are becoming accepting
“We need everyone to join together in order to promote a safer, more friendly environment for YAOI/YURI fans and homosexuals,” Clay said in her mission statement.